Armed police and sniffer dogs were deployed to Main Road, Ormesby St Michael last night following reports of a man in possession of a firearm.

A spokesman in the police control room confirmed armed officers were deployed at about 5.30pm yesterday to the incident and said a person in a vehicle had been arrested and that inquiries into the incident were ongoing.

Joe Aldred, 15, who got pictures of the drama as it unfolded, said he thought all the police activity was because there had been a crash.

He said: “At around 8pm, I heard some sirens, but I didn’t think anything of them at the time.

“I looked out of the window and there was a massive queue of traffic. At first I thought there had been an accident, so I went outside to see what was going on, and there was a flood of police cars at the bottom of the road.

Dad went down there to see what was going on; He came back and said that there were policemen with machine guns.”

Joe’s father Craig, 42, said it was a bit of a surprise to see armed police in the area. He said: “I just thought someone had just been pulled over but when I went down there could see armed police.”